I think a few people have missed the point of Shredder. It isn't supposed to be Citizen Kane, it's a slasher movie fer cryin' out loud. All bile aside, Shredder is an entertaining 90 minutes of tongue in cheek slasher silliness.
Where Shredder excels is its decision not to try and reinvent the genre, just to bend the rules a little. Like bigger movies such as Freddy vs Jason and Scream, Shredder sticks pretty firmly to its roots but injects a little humour into proceedings. For the most part this is warmly accepted and enjoyable, such as a soon-to-be victim flying down a hill towards his death as a Blink 182 style song intones 'somebody kill me' in the background, or an early kill spending most of the first half of the movie floating around on a ski lift without anyone noticing them.
Sometimes it just falls flat on its face between two stools though. The video diary guy is a waste of good film stock, and even if his death is satisfying, he still stuck around too long for my liking, and I could never really tell if he was supposed to be funny or not. Similarly, a lot of the script sounds like a bunch of very old people started to randomly brainstorm 'hip lingo' into a random sentence generator. The scripting flips from clever to stupid far too often for my liking.
However, even with one total waste of space in the cast and a really cheesy 'down wid the kidz' script, Shredder is still a right old laugh. The kills are a little thin on the ground, but what you do get is inventive and messy (Feel like seeing someone get their head taken off their shoulders at 30+mph? Watch this.) Also, despite a few pacing difficulties (the movie doesn't really kick in until 30 minutes in) the movie is pretty good at keeping you interested. Despite the script, most of the young cast are eminently watchable (especially since aside from the video-jerk most of the really bad characters die early anyhow) and act pretty convincingly. Lindsey Mckeon (who's the only person I've seen in anything else, that being an episode of Grounded for Life) is especially good as the spoilt little rich brat.
So, how's Shredder rate? Well it won't see anyone rethinking their top 10 movies (unless you really like slasher flicks) but it's a good fun watch. I think watching it more than once is over-egging it a little, but if you watch with an open mind you'll probably enjoy it. And if you don't just keep repeating this mantra 'The annoying guy dies horribly...the annoying guy dies horribly...'
Where Shredder excels is its decision not to try and reinvent the genre, just to bend the rules a little. Like bigger movies such as Freddy vs Jason and Scream, Shredder sticks pretty firmly to its roots but injects a little humour into proceedings. For the most part this is warmly accepted and enjoyable, such as a soon-to-be victim flying down a hill towards his death as a Blink 182 style song intones 'somebody kill me' in the background, or an early kill spending most of the first half of the movie floating around on a ski lift without anyone noticing them.
Sometimes it just falls flat on its face between two stools though. The video diary guy is a waste of good film stock, and even if his death is satisfying, he still stuck around too long for my liking, and I could never really tell if he was supposed to be funny or not. Similarly, a lot of the script sounds like a bunch of very old people started to randomly brainstorm 'hip lingo' into a random sentence generator. The scripting flips from clever to stupid far too often for my liking.
However, even with one total waste of space in the cast and a really cheesy 'down wid the kidz' script, Shredder is still a right old laugh. The kills are a little thin on the ground, but what you do get is inventive and messy (Feel like seeing someone get their head taken off their shoulders at 30+mph? Watch this.) Also, despite a few pacing difficulties (the movie doesn't really kick in until 30 minutes in) the movie is pretty good at keeping you interested. Despite the script, most of the young cast are eminently watchable (especially since aside from the video-jerk most of the really bad characters die early anyhow) and act pretty convincingly. Lindsey Mckeon (who's the only person I've seen in anything else, that being an episode of Grounded for Life) is especially good as the spoilt little rich brat.
So, how's Shredder rate? Well it won't see anyone rethinking their top 10 movies (unless you really like slasher flicks) but it's a good fun watch. I think watching it more than once is over-egging it a little, but if you watch with an open mind you'll probably enjoy it. And if you don't just keep repeating this mantra 'The annoying guy dies horribly...the annoying guy dies horribly...'